An academic team at Leeds Metropolitan University has published the results of a research project that appears to reveal that rugby players of either code suffer far more back injuries than previously had been thought.

Team leader Karen Hind, a Senior Research Fellow and Certified Clinical Densitometrist, found that at least one-third of professional rugby players have suffered spinal injuries equivalent to those of a car-crash victim.

Between November 2010 and May 2012 she examined 95 professional from both codes of rugby – 52 from two Rugby League clubs, one in Super League and one in the Championship, and 43 from a single Aviva Premiership club – to establish the prevalence of vertebral fractures.